Eight-year-old Luis Carranza, whose mother slipped him from Mexico into the United States for live-saving cancer treatment, has died of leukemia after the same treatment that once offered him remission attacked his central nervous system, and caused seizures and terminal, irreversible brain damage.

Luis' story, first featured in a September 18 post, is a powerful one, riddled with struggle and hardship and love and commitment.

The story began less than two years ago when Guadalupe Carranza smuggled her young, sick son into the United States for treatment. Luis was welcomed into a Texas hospital and was showered with an abundance of love from staff and volunteers. Guadalupe did not receive the same warm welcome, however, and was deported back to Mexico. And while she battled to return to her son's bedside, Guadalupe was met with continued defeat -- until her son fell into a coma and border and consulate officials allowed the mother to cross back into the United States where she stayed until her son passed away on Thursday at his grandparent's house in El Paso.

Guadalupe had been with her son since May 8, 2006. And an attorney involved in Luis' case says he believes the boy, despite his serious condition, could sense his mother's presence. And everyone involved believes the boy, who was clearly suffering, is now in a much better place.

It is said that 79-year-old Leonard Kulisek had not suffered any major illness in the years before his unfortunate death, except he did have a prescription for his gout. The Walgreens pharmacist who filled Kulisek's prescription was working under the influence of OxyContin and hydrocodone. Instead of gout medicine, the bottle was filled with insulin pills. The next day, Kulisek slipped into a coma, and for the next 22 months suffered a series of health issues before he died.

The pharmacist admitted to being addicted to painkillers for eight years, and had stolen over 86,000 pills from the pharmacy where he worked. The jurors held Walgreens responsible for failing to catch the drug thefts or notice that the pharmacist had an addiction problem. Walgreens must pay $31 million dollars to the Kulisek family. Walgreens plans an appeal.

Medication errors can occur for a number of reasons. What can you do to avoid medication errors? According to Rx for Safety, the most common reasons that errors happen are:

• Incomplete information about a patient.
• Incomplete information about a medication, such as warnings or side effects.
• Poor communication regarding a prescription such as illegible handwriting, confusion between similar drug names, misuse of zeroes or decimal points or inappropriate abbreviations.
• Lack of appropriate labeling on the drug container or pharmacy shelf.

Before you leave the doctor's office, look at the written prescription. Can you read the handwriting? If you cannot, the pharmacist might have a problem reading it accurately. When you have your prescription filled, ask the pharmacist to answer any questions you might have regarding the medication. Check to make sure that printed literature is included with the prescription detailing information about side effects and proper dosages. On the side of the prescription bottle is a label that describes what the pill looks like. Check to make sure the description of the pill matches the pills inside the bottle.

For more information on additional safeguards, read Avoiding Medical Errors at RX for Safety.

Luis Carranza is just eight years old. And he is just a few years -- or perhaps a few months -- away from dying as a result of a weakened immune system due to aggressive treatment for leukemia. The same treatment that at one time brought remission for this boy also attacked his central nervous system, caused seizures, brought on terminal and irreversible brain damage, and eventually sent him into a vegetative state. Luis has traveled a rough road -- and so has his mother who illegally slipped him across the Mexican border into the United States in hopes of treatment to save her young son's life.

Guadalupe Carranza did find salvation for her son in a Texas hospital and for more than one year, Luis received chemotherapy and radiation -- and loads of love from staff and volunteers who helped care for him. Guadalupe was not always there for her son, though, because after locating helpful health care and social services, she was deported to Mexico. She tried to return on many occasions and even received assistance from doctors, nurses, social workers, and attorneys who worked to find a legal way to unite Guadalupe and Luis. But not until Luis fell into a coma did efforts pay off.

After negotiation with border and consulate officials, Guadalupe was granted a humanitarian parole visa and legally crossed into the United States on May 8. The visa allowed her 60 days -- but officials agreed to let her stay until Luis passes away. And so she stays -- by her son's bedside where he rests peacefully in a place that gave him a chance at life. A chance his mother says he never would have had in Mexico.

The story I am about to tell you is horrific and gathered from various news accounts of the event that have been published over the months since it happened.

Last March, six healthy young men volunteered at Northwick Park Hospital, in London as participants in a clinical trial for a drug called TGN1412, designed to treat leukemia, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. According to the men, they were told by doctors there would be no serious short-term or long-term side effects. They were each paid £2,000. Within hours, the worst that could happen did, and the men were plunged into a nightmare beyond anything they could have imagined.

I was present for death only one time in my 36 years of life. I consider this both a bad and a good thing. It's bad because I did not want my grandmother to die -- and watching it happen made it so real, so vivid, so painful. I don't think I would have ever chosen to watch my grandma die -- to watch her slip from consciousness to coma, to observe her altered body once death arrived, to witness the movement of her body on a stretcher as it was wheeled out of the house from the bedroom I still see every time I visit my mom's house. But I think I am lucky really -- and this is the good part -- because I got to be with her during her final moments. I got to watch her body as it lay still, peaceful and calm and still breathing. I got to talk to her and although she could not respond, I believe she could hear my words. And it makes me happy to know my grandma may have known I was with just prior to her flight to heaven. And after her flight, I got to touch her cool hands. I got to feel the power of the passing of one life -- a long life -- and I got to feel the comfort of a death that was not ugly or painful or difficult. It was sad -- it's still sad -- that my grandma died three years ago. But what a privilege it was to be part of the day she left this world.

Susan DeWilde left this world in much the same way -- with loved ones by her side. She was a fighter and had conquered several rounds of breast cancer, a tumor in her spinal cord, uterine cancer, lymphatic cancer, and then leukemia, which took her life at the age of 53. I don't know this from Susan herself but from her friend, Christy Mack -- who helped her accept her death and guided her into her own final moments so that she could escape her pain and die peacefully. Christy writes about her beautiful friend and her empowering death in an article that appears in the August 2006 Oprah Magazine. Titled Friends to the End, Christy's story details how she soothed her friend, cradled her hand, and talked her through her last breaths. She helped her on her way during a time her friend feared most. Christy writes, "What she and I shared the night she died was a precious gift of friendship, emotionally profound and sacred in its perfection. It broke my heart. It strengthened my soul."

This I understand.

Actress Lucy Lawless has not left the hospital bedside of her father, former Mt Albert mayor Frank Ryan, who developed complications after an operation for stomach cancer. Ryan is in a coma at Auckland City Hospital. According to an unnamed family source, the hospital admits an error was made during the operation to remove cancer from Ryan's stomach. At first, the operation seemed a success, and Ryan appeared to be doing fairly well, even joking with family members. Then, on day two, he fell gravely ill. On examination, it was discovered that the wounds had been improperly stitched, resulting in perforation, leading to an infection, called peritonitis, that spread quickly to his liver, kidneys and lungs. Ryan fell into the coma shortly after the discovery of infection. Ryan remains in a coma. Lawless remains at his side. At this time, the family remains quiet and does not wish to publicly speculate as to the cause of Ryan's infection.

Auckland Hospital's statement on the matter comes from David Sage, chief medical officer, who is quoted as saying, "We are satisfied that this patient received the highest standard of care. There are risks involved in any surgery and patients and, if appropriate, their families are always made fully aware of those risks." Standard statement expected from a hospital. This story does come in a week of other cancer patients suffering possibly fatal injury or death as a result of medical miscalculations. Hopefully, they can get Ryan's infection under control and get him turned around in the right directon for healing.